OK, maybe not ‘torch’ worthy, but at least a couple of bottle rockets! Drifting Yak and I were out overnight at Tiki. We each caught a limit of trout – 16”-19” – and a couple of slot reds, both had a 25” and a 20+”. Plus a bunch of underslot trout and reds! It was an active night in both quiet water and flowing water, wind blown or calm. They did not seem to mind. I got really good at giving slack line to the small trout to get them off! One problem, the big fish also had a soft bite - -so - is it big, is it little.

The big red I got acted like a flounder for me. I felt a bump, it came along as I reeled it in, then I could not get it off bottom – like flounder do to me. But on feeling this pull the red shot off – just like reds do – it was then I knew – this was no flounder. Several runs around the boat and I finally got him in!

A fun active night, some new sights and actions. Air temp in low 70’s, same as the water. Winds not over powering but present – or not, depending on what side of the island.

Watson his son, Dandydon and I hit Pirates last night at 2 am. I managed four trout (16, 16, 17 and 18 - three females) and two slot reds, but over near Lafitte's where there was one surface light and some underwater lights on the bay front. The fish in the lights inside Pirates were surprisingly finicky and spooky. Of the water by 630 am. Same weather conditions you guys had, but most of our shoreline was protected from the S/SE winds.

As Shoffer said, we launched at Pirates around 2a. Lots of bait in the water but not nearly as many big shadows lurking as I’ve seen recently at Sea Isle. I only managed to scratch out one keeper speck. I let my son make the first few casts into each light so that may have had a small impact on the numbers but not the fun.

He also took his first voyage in the Hobie and I have a feeling I’m never getting it back. He was doing donuts around me as we were hanging out by the launch after fishing. And since no one asked, yes, my 48 year old arms in the T160 can still beat his 12 year old legs in the Hobie in a 100 yard sprint. But that won’t stay true for much longer.

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SH & MW - glad to hear that you guys were able to get out. Guess Mike was not able to get Tiki as a destination! So we were out there at the same time - a nice night to be out.

It is funny going to places you know - We went out looking for action in areas where it was in the past, but then find it elsewhere!

Also, some new sights - on the north side were some very bright dock lights shining down on the water and in the semi-foggy conditions, we could see the reflection back up into the sky. There was a bright green and a blue light that was reflected up into the fog and which displayed an aurora borealis type of image, moving about due to the movement of the surface of the water. The image is of that area, the green and blue lights are on the other side of the big white light, and so not visible directly, however the reflected image can just be made out on the left side of the pic - a pale bluish green!

It was a fun night of fishing. And although we caught plenty of fish, my favorite was landing a fat 26" red on light tackle (Lew's Mach Crush 200 spinning reel coupled with a medium light action rod). Took about 5 minutes to land the thing. It would take line and I would get it back. Even had it at the yak 3 times and it would run like hell once it saw my light. Ultimately it gave up the ghost and came to the net. Talk about a great time! And the specs were nice and fat as well!